My girl is turning 7 today.
And believe me, I was all set with a pity-party-in-a-box, ready to open, to celebrate my misery that my girl is growing up and any day now she’ll be heading off to college and getting married and moving to who-knows-where…
But our sermon at Prayer Meeting last night changed my heart.
While we may remember all the scripture quotes and all the Sunday School lessons and all the missionary stories, sometimes in the middle of our own daily walk, our hearts can forget. Our hearts forget that to suffer is part of human life. But the great privilege of the Christian life–our great victory over this human life–is that our suffering, our hurt, our struggles, our darkness, do have real meaning. Everlasting meaning. That it is all working to God’s good purpose, if we commit it to Him.
Recently I’ve forgotten that my children are not just mine. And that my parenting struggles are not just mine.
They are HIS.
They are His children and He is in this battle to raise them with me for His glory. He made them the way they are because of the work He has for them to do and He will never leave them and never forsake them and never give up on them. They will never be out of His sight or out of His reach or out of His protection.
So today I can be thankful.
Thankful for this treasure of sunlight blond hair and sapphire eyes. Thankful for these 7 precious years of head-tossing competence and gap-toothed grins. Thankful for her firstborn, take-charge, mindset and her eagerness to help. Thankful for her dependable maturity and her soft heart.
Thankful to be her mother.
Today my heart is wide open.
I don’t have to mourn over time, because the promise of salvation is that I have forever. So today we’re celebrating the gift of my daughter. The gift she is to us, and the gift she will be to the world. Because God has great things in mind for her.
He told me so Himself.
“Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust thee before the sons of men!” (Psalms 31:19)
